The Demon Prince

Lucius was standing when he resurrected, and the realisation was dizzying; this wasn't the forest. The darkness of the keep-realm, lit generously by a full moon, made his heartbeat frantic. 

He turned, wide eyed and panicked, to see the gargoyle's decapitated body fall to the floor, revealing Kane: four claw marks in his chest. He wobbled, and Lucius stumbled trying to race to the archer's side. He didn't make it before Kane's body smacked against the hard, cracked cobblestone below. 

Lucius was speechless. Why had he resurrected here? He took Kane by the head and cradled him once more, the swordsman's lower lip close to buckling as his vision grew blurry with grief. Using one hand, Lucius fumbled with his pouch and removed the glowing Emberwood catalyst, clumsily forcing it into Kane's hand. No matter how hard Lucius squeezed, nothing happened. 

The archer shook his head and spoke through convulsing breaths. "Won't... work... soul...bound." Lucius opened his mouth, but nothing came out, and the gem dropped to the ground as Kane's weak grip let it go. 

Before Lucius had a chance to stop himself, tears fell from his eyes, traced his cheeks, and pattered onto Kane's shoulder. He cried silently. Motionlessly. 

Kane managed another croak through his light convulsions. "Sorr...sorry... Lucius," he stuttered. Lucius sniffled and took Kane in his embrace, burying his own face his Kane's neck. The dying soul convulsed one last time before reciting his parting words, "Bearer... of Essence..." and his body went limp in the swordsman's arms. 

Lucius, now free of witnesses, began to weep quietly. A sight and sound completely unbefitting of him. Who was Kane, that his absence would reduce such a man to a blubbering mess? An ally? A means to traverse The Highway? Or a companion, simply someone to help pass the time. Or was he a friend? Did Lucius even know what a friend was? 

In all the memories he had collected, the swordsman couldn't tie the word 'friend' to any familiar feeling. Did the living Lucius have any friends? The answer, based on what Lucius knew of himself, was a definitive no. Bootlickers and assassins were the only people brave enough to get close to the living Lucius; a king born out of spite and twisted vengeance. 

For a moment, Lucius thought to try suicide again, but quickly put off the idea. His resurrection point was final. Dying now would only put him through Kane's death a third time. Lucius didn't want that, even if he didn't know why. 

There was absolutely no way to go back. No matter how hard his mind struggled and fought with itself to think of one, he knew deep down there wasn't. Kane was gone, and that was final. Time was lost to him in that moment. He could have been sitting there for minutes or hours. 

As he grieved, blank and spent of emotion, the wall in which Alistair had burst through exploded in a loud crash once again. Lucius looked up from the ground slowly: too void of feelings to care or react appropriately. 

From the cloud of debris and white dust, an armoured knight, eight feet tall and built like a house, charged Lucius with a longsword and tall, rectangular shield, each adorned with detailed engravings that matched the other. 

Unlike the fabricated gargoyle that the god's had spat out in the spur of the moment, this was the keep-realm's true Bearer of Essence. 

Unlike the corpses of undead soldiers sprawled out in the courtyard, this knight had no revealed flesh. Even his helmet was sealed: a single, centimetre tall slit sat horizontally at eye level. But there was only void within. 

As the knight advanced, Lucius scowled up at them. His gaze bore through the hulking mass, and if his eyes had been weapons, the knight would already be dead. Lucius rose, scooping up his blade in the process. He carefully stepped over Kane's body as Ripper stood to attention at his side, while the knight brought its large shield forward and raised its sword high, then charged. 

No sound came from within their helm, but their boot-steps were loud and rattly. Flames shot up Ripper's length, and as Lucius's brows curled down with a festering impatience, he swung his living blade, imbued with all his hate, sorrow, and grief, in an upward arc to intercept the knight's husk of a weapon. 

Ripper bathed itself in the longsword's steel, severing it at the hilt. As Lucius and the knight passed one another, Ripper and its wielder twirled with grace, and the living blade descended, glowing incandescently, and rend through the knight's armour like flesh. 

Momentarily, the knight fell in two halves, each piece clattering to the ground in a noisy cascade of metal. Lucius didn't turn; he knew his strike was true enough to kill. He fell to his knees as his adrenaline wore off and his emotionless state returned. 

He sat on his heels in the aftermath, Ripper in hand and its tip resting on the floor. As he slouched, giving little thought to the essence bearer he had just slain, a leaf fell into his vision from above. He didn't react. Nothing could surprise him at this point. Another leaf fell, two veins running through it in a cross. As more descended, his gaze found them. They were converging in a singular mass. If his hunch was correct, he wasn't going to greet his next visitor with the same affection as he had before. Far from it. He could still feel her compulsion to journey through The Highway, but since recovering a portion of his memories, the compulsion had grown weak. 

The leaves moulded themselves into the shape of a woman, and like the event in the forest, the foliage soon turned the pale colour of skin, aside from her long, naval length hair; her breasts and groin staying hidden behind the thin, green strands. Her smile was as maternal as ever, and a sympathetic arc shaped her brows. 

Lucius snarled up at her with swollen eyes. "Are the gods appeased?" he asked bitterly. 

She tilted her head ever so slightly, her smile never waning. "Thy soul is a stout one. The recollection of one's memories has impaired thee. But... thy has endured his hardships with valour. I am here to mend thy soul's wounds." 

"Cut the shit," growled Lucius. "You sick bastards enjoy watching this... these hell games?" 

The woman's smile was swiftly swapped for a light scowl, and her maternal aura that once embraced everything it touched shifted to an overpowering malice. Her chin rose and she stared down at him. The keep-realm seemed to still, like time itself had been subdued by her scornful glare. "Thy foul words sully the air. His soul shall be amended and guided back to the true destiny laid out for him since his arrival." 

"I refuse to follow your 'destiny'," he growled, teeth clenched. As he finished speaking, a burning hand, flaking and lined with embers, broke through the ground beneath him with terrifying speed. It clutched Lucius's throat and constricted him in place. Ripper fell to the ground as he panicked and clawed at the hellish limb. Another broke through the cobblestone floor and took hold of an arm, then another. 

The leaf-woven maiden raised a hand, and the burning arms lifted Lucius off the ground. The arms continued to slither out of the floor, unnaturally long and multi-jointed. He stopped ascending when he reached her eye-level. 

"Dirt does not choose," she spat. "It does not disobey. It falls into the shape of the vessel the gods have given it." The goddess slowly moved her hand to cover Lucius's face, which was contorting and shifting shades of red and purple as he tried desperately to breathe through an intense heat growing in his lungs. 

A violent pain shot through Lucius's temple. A searing, agonising, toe curling pain. He tried to scream, to wail, to shriek, but the burning hand on his throat was suffocating him, and there was no air left in him to release as sound. 

His eyes shot wide open, and the browns of his irises turned a deep, blood red, the whites turning black, like ink being dropped into a foamy sea. Flames began to protrude from them, searing his eyelashes and burning the skin around them, turning it charcoal. 

The goddess frowned. "This is your destiny. And you will walk its path." She pushed down on his face, and the hands dragged Lucius through the ground of the keep-realm's courtyard. He fell silently into a bottomless abyss, disappearing into its depths. 

Lucius awoke to utter darkness. He couldn't even tell if his eyes were open. His body didn't ache, but he couldn't move it either. Nor could he form words with his mouth. It was a humiliating, paralytic state. 

Soon, after a length of time, a lonely, dim flame ignited some distance ahead of him. Then another to its left. A throne of smooth, cut, black stone was all the tiny flames managed to reveal; everything else was too dark to make out. The throne flickered in the torches' waning orange light, and suddenly, his arm moved of its own accord, dragging him closer to the throne with a sluggish pull. Then his other arm moved and mimicked its counterpart. He realised, with his limited vision, his other hand was gripping Ripper. It clattered and scraped on the pristine marble floor below him as he was dragged ever closer to the abyssal throne. 

No matter how hard he tried to stop himself from crawling toward it, his mind resisted his body. Compulsion commanded him to sit upon its grandeur. It was meant for him, after all. That he knew. He knew it in the same way that Ripper was his bade, and that Lucius was his name. The closer he got, the more definite the fact was. 

As he arrived at the foot of the throne, he reached up and pulled himself into the royal seat with a weak twist, where he sat and panted wearily in exhaustion. 

He was tired. 

He was so very tired. But he was forbidden from rest. He sat leaning half on the smooth, stone armrest, and half on Ripper, his most faithful companion, who's point dug into the black marble at his feet. If Lucius ever had a true friend, it was his blade. It had supported him at every turn. Aided him in every battle. And slain every foe. 

As he thought of his weapon, his companion, fiery snakes gently began to flow up the blade's length, gradually engulfing it in a steady warmth. The warmth was welcomed by the tired soul. It was soothing. 

Behind where he sat, the faint outline of a large portcullis stood towering over him. And in the darkness, as he slouched in his seat, the black, burned rims of his eyes lit up in a dim light, small flames leaking from his pupils. They didn't hurt, they belonged. They were apart of him. They were his birth right, as was the seat he sat upon. The birth right of he who's destiny was ordained by the gods themselves. He who sits upon the Prince's throne, and he who eternally guards the gates to hell. 

He was home. 

... 

And it was there, he waited. 

... 

For a worthy challenger to venture into the Demon Prince's domain. 

THE END